Last weekend as I plunged headlong into traffic snarled primarily by gapers in front of the Hasely Crawford Stadium, it dawned on me: people who slow down to see what has caused the traffic fail to appreciate that it is often their slowing down to gawk at the latest roadside tragedy on offer that is the cause of the congestion. This time the subject of the motorists' entertainment was the severe flooding which wreaked havoc at the western end of Woodbrook. After a period of prolonged rainfall on Saturday, both the Diego Martin and Maraval rivers overflowed their banks, the latter being worse than the former, according to most reports. Residents of Maraval got their licks first from the Maraval river but that concrete canal had much more to give and did so happily as it raged into Woodbrook.
As I sat stuck in the traffic, goose-necking out the window to determine if there was a way I could mount the median and head in another direction without attracting the attention of the filth, a fire services jeep sped by with a fashion-appropriate red dinghy in tow. I thought to myself, "Wow! That has to be overkill... What? Are our fire officers too precious to get their gnads wet while pulling a spooked pensioner out of a house with barely four inches of water in the front yard?" As I rounded the bend and looked down O'Connor Street, I caught a glimpse of what would be a horrific sight for anyone-just the tops of about three cars, like tiny desert islands in a sea of dead calm brown water. So this was no puddle-splash flooding, there was water enough for the residents to contend with.
Some of the comments generated in the aftermath by the water-wrinkled residents pointed the finger at the MovieTowne complex. While I am not rubbishing the theory that the sprawling complex had somehow contri-buted to a change in flood patterns, to whom was blame as- signed before the developer backfilled valuable mangrove so that every Trinidadian could experience crass, American commercialism at its finest? Officials at the Princess Elizabeth Home told the Social Development Minister on his obligatory visit that the facility had been flooded comprehensively on several occasions over the last ten years. Perhaps their records from before that 10-year water mark were destroyed in floods because I distinctly recall hiking up my cheap slacks as a reporter in the mid 1990s to cover flooding at the Princess Elizabeth Home and other areas of Woodbrook.
O'Connor Street normally bears the brunt of it because it appears to be in a basin of sorts so the water pools there more efficiently with little means of escape. As is usually the case, when the water recedes it leaves behind a tremendous amount of debris and pseudo-engineers, honorary hydrologists, who offer for the cameras with unflinching confidence their analysis of the origin of the problem. "Evah since dey divert dat drain dey so, iz only water in meh skin, ee'm self wit de smalless ah rain!" Or: "De guvament cut de channel dey, now whilst dat was good eh, becor we did aks fuh dat, dey did suppose to kwerry it much furdder dan dat! Eef dey did doeeeit we would'na be in all dis problem hyar!" It is easy to relate though; in the absence of any real authority conducting regular surveys of drain- age systems in flood-prone communities, residents are forced to make their own assessments about possible triggers for annual inundation. It is the only way really that one can feel in control of a situation that is in control of you.
We've all been given a series of dissertations on the causes of flooding in this country. It is a complex web of unplanned development, indiscriminate dumping in watercourses, outdated drain-age networks, tidal influence, alluvial deposits at river mouths, global warming, and the Taliban. At times it seems these things can be delinked and then just as easily reassembled into one, easy-to-blame hydra-headed monster created by this government or unchained by the last government. In the 1980s flooding was a regular feature of my community during the August holidays. On at least two occasions it was so bad that the fire department had to be called upon to assist my family in flushing out the tremendous amounts of mud that the neighbourhood drainage canal regurgitated into our home. In those days development in Diego Martin and Diamond Vale was a fraction of what it is today, so I wonder where the theory of increased run-off due to urban sprawl fits in with consistent flooding in a period of relatively nascent development of mass human settlement in Diego Martin.
That there is some connection between the explosion of housing (particularly on the hillsides) and increased flooding certainly seems borne out in other so prone areas, Maraval being the perfect test case.
Returning recently from a drive up the North Coast, I was making my way down the hill in the vicinity of Moka (you know, which part the people with the good hair live) and, as I glanced at the housing developments where the obscenely wealthy perch above their minions on their coveted hillside acreage, there was one complex which stood out. It is prominent not only for its size but the design. From a distance, this thing had the appearance of one giant sheet of asphalt laid down on the hillside; a huge centre part in the mountain's afro. Even to the casual observer, such a significant change in the natural design of the hill slope cannot be achieved without incurring some physiographic consequence. Typically, silt traps and terracing are generally employed as mitigating factors, but with housing developments pursued with the same adherence to law and proper procedure as the drug trade, we can never be assured that measures to stave off flooding have been factored into the design.
Colm Imbert was certainly right when he said years ago that drain-age infrastructure was simply not keeping pace with our development imperatives. As such, the carrying capacity of our major drainage channels has been severely compromised. How do we now expand our drainage infrastructure to meet the needs of an expanding population when that expanding population is living squat on the river banks everywhere? Now I do understand the value of the promise to "end flooding," you have to give the people something to hold, after all dey duck drong and rice get wet. That, we all know, however, is as viable as "no-strings sex." What might be more useful is an updated hydrological survey to determine the extent of the problem, the varying influences and a strategy to inform government policy on drainage and development. In the time being you could keep clearing de drain dem. People does like to see dat!